“My mother would make turkey soup after the feast. Although I loved the feast, I loved the turkey soup even more,” Dukakis recalled of his childhood Thanksgiving experience.

Dukakis said he continued the tradition while raising his own kids.

“I began making turkey soup from our own carcass. And then I discovered that some of our friends were actually throwing the carcass away. I said, ‘How can you possibly do this? I mean, turkey soup!'” he declared. “By the way, my grandkids love it. I said, ‘You’ve got to hang onto it, freeze it if you have to, and then turn it into soup.'”

“He preserves the carcasses, stuffing seven or eight of them in his freezer after each Thanksgiving, which on its own is quite a feat, requiring sharp scissors to get the bones down to a more reasonable size,” Viser reported.

“Throughout the course of the year, once every month or two, he removes one of the carcasses. He gets out a pot. He pours enough water to cover the bones, adds an onion, and lets it simmer for at least three hours. He cleans the meat off the bones, he adds in rice and any assortment of vegetables (‘Peas are good. Carrots are good’).”

Due to the popularity of The Globe’s story, Dukakis said Friday that he’s “had at least a dozen turkey carcasses delivered to our door this morning.”

CNN’s John Berman also Dukakis if the turkey-carcass tradition would have made it to the White House had he won the 1988 presidential race.

“I mean, a lot of people are throwing them out,” Dukakis replied. “And they’re missing a fabulous meal, so maybe if I’d become president of the United States, we could have had literally thousands – maybe millions – of people out there making themselves turkey soup and sharing it with others.”

Dukakis added, “Given the reaction to this, maybe I’ll suggest it to the president. Who knows?”